Archive for the ‘Poetry Collective’ Category

1978-10-26

Thursday, October 26th, 1978
      She never touched me, though she came to play
         she's never loved me no matter what I've heard her say
      she's just like me in so many ways
         she's a rogue.
      Our eyes and touch press ... skin to skin
         we talk of 'real', rejoice within
      but wait like cats to pounce and win
         neither lies but we love to sin.
      A wastrel's dream this love so thin
         where bodies press and egos win
      the coward's risk stops at the skin
         and though we share ourselves we're not akin
      "Have a nice day...", "I love your hands...",
         "I care for you...", "My freedom demands...",
      "I live confused...", "I want to win."
         why do we press so hard to feel so thin?
      The dance unwinds, we learn our ways
         the passion flares ... smoke, winds blow away
      another meeting, warm clay to clay
         it feels so wrong, hasn't love more to say?
                              gallagher
                              10-26-78 - about kathy a.
                              long beach

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

1983-01-12 On Sophies choice

Wednesday, January 12th, 1983
                        On Sophie's choice
         Let me look ... let the light freeze just there
            on these love worn hands and new grayed hair
         softly now ... go and see your child
            go and look ... with your eyes that can feel and smile
         That your children, so loved, can die ... its unbelievable
            their small coats still buttoned up.
         And your wife, with her warmth at night
            and all those photograph albums shared
               and the cups she's dried with care
                  and the small wrinkles that seem to run
                     where once was young and fair.
         Go, my friend, and walk the house and touch the wood
            and sit among it ... your midnight kin
         and let the walls come round you ... and the moments wait
            while you think how frail, ...how frail is this love
         That a child, you've dressed for school can die,
            a bullet's glove, on a concrete step.
         And that the woman who's shared all those years
            can become just a statistic 
               in some foreigner's newspaper
         Some day these all, the child, warm wife, and wood
            could be torn from your page of life
         and your cups go broken ... and their skin grow cold
            while pitiless politicians
               vie for their intangible goods....
                                    Gallagher
                                    12 January 1983
                                       Dallas, TX
 

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

1983-02-07 Gerda’s Knife

Monday, February 7th, 1983


                           Gerda's Knife

      I watched 'Winds of War' on TV 
      and then I turned out the light
      And, on the stairs, in the dark, ascending
          I suddenly saw your father's knife as 
        it hung in your bedroom.

      Its white metal patient 
      these many years
      since another sun shown on it
          in the days of the German Reich.

      I could hear flags whipping, 
     red and black,
      against the green of trees
         and the gray of building stones

      And, for a moment, 
     I felt the eyes of countless men
      as their hands caressed 
     the handle's symbol
      reveling in the power and purpose 
     of their God given cause.

      and then, these many years later, 
     through chances too rare to say,
      I came ... and found it there in your room
         waiting patiently 
        through all the years of my childhood.

      A time machine 
     from another reality.
      A time that almost 
     changed my world.

      I look at old photos now, 
     black and white,
      and their images seem 
     so distant and unreal to me.
            
  but with your father's knife
        I could still hear the flags snapping
     in the fervent air of those years
        and I could feel the force of it all
      across the years.

                                    GALLAGHER
                                    7 Feb 83
                                    San Juan Capistrano

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —